This One's For the Moms Out There.

January 29, 2009

If you're not one, feel free to skip right on over. But I had to share this piece "How To Avoid Baby Formula" from Gourmet's website (of all places!). If you have had a baby and spent any time in a doctor's office and/or the hospital during your pregnancy and delivery, you will identify with what the author is talking about. Formula companies blatantly trying to shove that stuff down your baby's throat (I know sometimes it is needed, but still....)

Favorite quote: "I had been cooking from scratch for way too many years to feed my baby meal-replacement shakes."

By the way, the author Lesley Porcelli has started The Kids Menu monthly-ish column and she has some interesting topics, so check it out. Here is another great piece on moms who decide to have that glass of wine now and again while -- gasp! -- pregnant.

lovely morning and jbhat: I highly recommend that glass of wine while "with child." i'll take any chance to live more like a french woman! also, i believe it's way more about what you DO eat than what you don't eat while pregnant. And congrats to you, jbhat. :)

Painful topic to anyone who ended up not being able to breastfeed and wanted to. Not all are victims of some corporate campaign geared toward formula. In fact, I would say the culture these days is so strongly skewed toward breastfeeding that mother's unable to accomplish it are loaded with shame from day one. That seems like the bigger tragedy to me.

I also agree with Becky. I wanted to exclusively breastfeed, but couldn't produce enough milk. I was miserable for the first year, and it didn't help that my LLL representative kept saying things like "formula is disgusting and upsets baby's tummy" and "it's very rare that a mother can't produce enough milk", as if I was withholding milk intentionally.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sprinkle my bitterness on your lovely blog. With respect to the wine during pregnancy topic, I agree that people should relax. Actually, I heard that French women are cautioned from eating salad during their pregnancy. I don't know why, but maybe because of a fear of parasites or bacteria from improperly washed vegs, since salads have a lot of raw components?

Jora, we all adore you & your blog...this is just such a LOADED topic...and not your fault that it is just that. i just want women to leave me alone when I am bottle feeding henry (organic formula) and not give me dirty looks or start obnoxious conversations. I had CANCER. I can't have biological children. I CAN'T BREASTFEED!!! maybe i should make a shirt that says that!??! lol. xo, jenny :)

I agree with some here that, at least where I am, the pressure is more about breastfeeding no matter what. Obviously, each mother needs to do what's best for her children... whatever that happens to be. Sometimes articles like these come off as 'one size fits all.'

Ironically, this article made be even more grateful for my excellent healthcare providers... this formula pressure routine never happened for us.

I feel obligated to weigh in as well. While I agree that there is certainly a marketing slant towards formula,to me it is no different than the marketing for fast food, useless toys, etc. As a parent it is your responsibility to filter and make the best choices for your family.

I was blessed to be able to nurse both my babies but have known several friends who struggled and could just not. I'm glad they had a choice and those babies are now grown and healthy.

I think it is really hard for those who have such strong opinions about breastfeeding to be empathetic. Which is a shame...

Jora love your blog and never comment - I just want to say that I am so pleased to see how polite and thoughtful everyone has been about this topic! (from a mother who desparately wanted to BF and was unable to and silently still suffering!)

Love this post! I have always believed that the "no wine while prego" rule was really about the fear that people aren't intelligent enough to moderate on their own, so docs just say don't do it, period. i very much enjoyed the occassional cocktail during my last pregnancy and I plan to do the same this time around. oh, and don't even get me started on the forumala pushing. Maia was born petite and the hospital pediatrician threatened to make us supplement every day we were in the hospital after her birth, but in the end, I won. Then despite going back to work fulltime, I only allowed breastmilk which meant pumping around the cloack and sometimes my husband had to pick up a supply from me at work and run it home, but it was so worth it. Finally just weaned at 14 months.

I had to stop breastfeeding my daughter after being diagnosed with cancer so I could start treatment. I, unlike Jenny, haven't gotten comments YET but want to let people know sometimes formula is your only choice.

This is such a tough subject because people are feel so strongly. I was fortunate enough to nurse my children but when I went back to work I still pumped for them. My oldest friend actually gave me grief that I was still pumping and I felt like she slapped me in the face (Obviously still a little bitter about that comment). I know that every woman's circumstances are different and I always try to keep that in the back of my mind. I just wish women weren't so hard on each other because we all are doing the best we can with what we've got.

Ohhh, once again, this topic sparks debate rather than understanding. This is an excerpt from a Celebrity Babies interview with Melora Hardin from The Office, and it is just what I wish I could articulate to express what I think about people having different ideas, opinions, political views, lifestyles, parenting methods, and values.

I think people take it personally and get threatened. They think you're saying that they're bad because they're doing it differently than you're doing it.

We value right and wrong, black and white -- we value extremes. We don't value trying to sort of discover and experience and appreciate the other side of things. I don't have interest in making people feel bad about what they've done because of what I've done.

Jora- I just found you this week and I love your blog!!!I know I'm delayed but I just wanted to add to the conversation that I found this article so empowering. So much of parenting in America seems to come down to consumerism and I feel like the article tells us to be aware of who is trying to make these important decisions for us. It's not about judging another person for doing the "right" or "wrong" thing, but being armed with some good information to help you stick with your choice in what might be an uncomfortable situation.

"let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. it will not lead you astray."- rumi

"do small things with great love."- mother teresa

"remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life."- marcus aurelius

"we do not see things as they are. we see things as we are."- anais nin

"we can love completely without complete understanding."-a river runs through it

"the ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."-thomas moore

"i have decided to stick with love. hate is too great a burden to bear."-martin luther king, jr.

"your children are not your children,they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.they come through you but are not from you,and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.you may give them your love but not your thoughts,for they have their own thoughts.you may house their bodies but not their souls,for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.you may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."-kahlil gibran

"ring the bells that can still ring forget your perfect offering. there is a crack in everything -- that's how the light gets in."- leonard cohen

"the good mother is a great artist ever creating beauty out of chaos."-alicia randall

"out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. i will meet you there."-rumi

"the best conversations with mothers always takes place in silence, when only the heart speaks."-carrie latet

"to love and to be loved is to feel the sun from both sides."-david viscott

"she discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them."- gabriel garcia marquez

"the master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. he hardly knows which is which. he simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. to him he’s always doing both."-james michener

"the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."-bertrand russell